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This sort of justifies the viewpoint that despite all his bluster, Elon will probably run Twitter the way a "reasonable executive" would. Not just release the

This sort of justifies the viewpoint that despite all his bluster, Elon will probably run Twitter the way a "reasonable executive" would. Not just release the hounds. Keep the advertisers happy, but try to reduce the reliance on advertisers. Keep moderating content to reduce abuse, maybe eliminate the high profile banning but a person on the ground will have largely the same experience. (probably less action on more contentious issues, but you still can't use racial epithets and call for violence). Evaluate most employees or teams on the merits, there will be layoffs, probably big layoffs but they'll be managed incremental and strategic. Build more products and pivot the product strongly but again, not in the image of a Parler or a Truth Social. Twitter won't become a cesspool because he understands that people need to be able to control what they see or they'll leave. Essentially try to create more safe spaces on twitter, not less.

jszymborski 4y ago
A bunch of accounts like The Babylon Bee and Ye have been unbanned w/o input from any such committee of diverse viewpoints. I don't have much faith that Musk will not act unilaterally in service of his friends and allies.
- mikkergp 4y ago
  Were they? I know I can see their pages, but I don't see any new content from them. realdonaldtrump is still suspended, I imagine we'll just have to wait to see what happens.
  - MBCook 4y ago
    Many of the “unbanned” accounts weren’t banned before and that didn’t change. They were in Twitter jail (or whatever the term is). The account is there but they couldn’t publish new tweets. That’s the change to watch for. He could unban Trump, say he kept his promise, but keep the account locked so that Trump couldn’t actually tweet. As a hypothetical example.
    - topynate 4y ago
      It's called a temporary suspension. Twitter asks you to acknowledge your tweet was bad by deleting it yourself. If you do, you get a time-out in the naughty corner for 12 hours, or a week, or whatever, and then you can tweet again. If you don't, you stay in the naughty corner. Whoever designed this process could stand to learn how to treat people like adults, in my opinion.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - PM_me_your_math 4y ago
        She has already been fired so the lesson is moot.
      - yamtaddle 4y ago
        > Whoever designed this process could stand to learn how to treat people like adults, in my opinion. So, simply shadow ban them, then?
        topynate 4y ago
        If you're referring to HN policy then for an established account it's not really shadowbanning, because dang will tell you that you're banned and why. Being treated as a useless noob until proven otherwise is being treated as an adult. Twitter is different (although perhaps more different than it needs to be). Seeing as you ask, here is how to handle content deletion on Twitter without infantilizing users. Don't ask a user to "delete" a tweet – something which has no effect on that tweet's visibility anyway. Just hide it and tell him why. If the user chooses to appeal, that appeal can go forward without restricting the use of the account. Give time-outs sparingly. They should be more of a final warning than a routine measure. If it's necessary to give a time-out, start the clock immediately, not when the user takes some action.
    - ghostpepper 4y ago
      Why is banned vs Twitter jail (or whatever the term is) a meaningful distinction?
- trophycase 4y ago
  According to sources he was unbanned before Musk got there
  - denton-scratch 4y ago
    What sources?
    - jonas21 4y ago
      Source: Elon Musk https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586073042534297601 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586073042534297601
      - vkou 4y ago
        He's been dishonest (in both small, and large things) with such frequency, that we're going to need independent verification before anything he says can be believed.
      - denton-scratch 4y ago
        Perhaps someone has independent corroboration?
- dereg 4y ago
  He was unbanned prior to musk’s arrival, according to musk.
  - FireBeyond 4y ago
    "Funding secured."
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  There have to be grades between banning and free for all.
  - dane-pgp 4y ago
    If we're dreaming big here, how about a slider that users can adjust for how much free speech they want to be exposed to? Or perhaps separate toggles for if they want to opt-in to seeing election misinformation, antivax conspiracies, bigotry against various groups, etc.
- fasthands9 4y ago
  I think one reasonable policy could be "form a council of diverse viewpoints and only ban someone if they all (or mostly all) agree the person should be kicked off" and another reasonable policy could be "form a council fo diverse viewpoints and ban someone if one (or a couple) think the person should be kicked off. I think its fair to say the committee will end up being a scapegoat - but to be charitable to the idea in general its pretty clear that not 100% or even 75% of the population thinks that Babylon Bee should be banned. If you have a system where one voice on the committee can ban someone then most liberal comedians would be banned for played up reasons, too.
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    Your first policy is reasonable, but your second is definitely not.
    - fasthands9 4y ago
      Sure. But ultimately there is some level of arbitrary lines where you have a trade-off of overbanning or underbanning. Say you have a committee of 9 people? What's your cut-off? There isn't a clear answer - especially as norms change a bit and the committee members change.
      - mbreese 4y ago
        I honestly don’t think it matters. The committee will answer to one person who can arbitrarily overrule the committee, whether formally or not. It’s his company and he can do what he wants with it. Any rules can be changed at any time without recourse. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. Well, it might be bad for Twitter the service, but as far as legal governance, it’s the way it works. The only limit will really be what advertisers will support. It is a business after all. But any type of council should be considered advisory at best.
    - orblivion 4y ago
      You could use the second standard to flag a user as "spicy" and hide them for users who prefer to be exposed to more "normal" opinions.
- concinds 4y ago
  Let's avoid disinfo. Neither account was banned to begin with. Both accounts were restricted, which could be lifted after the user deletes the offending tweet. It's overwhelmingly likely Musk had nothing to do with either case (and he said so himself). https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/28/technology/kanye-ye-twitter-ban.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/28/technology/kanye-ye-twitt...
  - mwint 4y ago
    Oh come on, that’s like saying someone isn’t being tortured, just temporarily having their pleasure removed until they confess.
    - klyrs 4y ago
      Is it actually anything like torture, though?
      - GaylordTuring 4y ago
        That's often not the point of analogies like this. So for the analog to be valid, the seriousness of the situation described doesn't have to be on similar levels. If you look up the definition of "analogy" on merriam-webster.com it says: "resemblance in some [my emphasis] particulars between things otherwise unlike"
        klyrs 4y ago
        Yeah, I know what an analogy is. It's a bloody stupid analogy because it's making a mountain out of a mole hill, when we all know that moles dig tunnels.
    - encryptluks2 4y ago
      No, that is like saying someone should remove some obscene clothing before entering a private establishment and here you are comparing it to be tortured.
- AustinDev 4y ago
  Unsuspended and Kanye's happened before he got there precisely for this framing if I had to guess. Likely a malicious employee.
  - sangnoir 4y ago
    > Likely a malicious employee. ...or an employee who felt unshackled from the previous management and knew they would have air-support by the time anyone else realized what had happened.
    - AustinDev 4y ago
      Also possible!
- bogota 4y ago
  That happened before elon officially took over. He replied to a question about it on Twitter and i really don’t see him lying about it. Im not a elon fan. At all. but the knee jerk reaction he gets at this point is kind of deserved… however you’re better off not falling into that trap.
  - FireBeyond 4y ago
    - bogota 4y ago
      Just my opinion. But why would you lie about what will become a fairly big piece of news right before you are about to go through and be cutting a bunch of jobs. It would be almost certain to leak.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- LastTrain 4y ago
  I would imagine the committee is not bound by past decisions, so it would follow that we'd see accounts getting unbanned at first.
- verisimi 4y ago
  Whereas the previous crew were magnanimous?
- partiallypro 4y ago
  Babylon Bee being suspended was one of the dumber things the previous Twitter rules had done. It's a satire site, it's right leaning, nothing in the piece they said was hateful or even an unpopular view. Kanye's ban, he's just a mentally ill person. I don't think he meant "death con" he just didn't know that it's actually "def con." His remarks are still reprehensible. Twitter's whole moderation problem has been it is very, very inconsistent. I've seen accounts from certain political persuasions be banned or suspended, but then I have seen someone openly tell someone to kill themselves (or that they deserve to be killed or beaten) and the tweet was never removed, and the person was never suspended/banned because of the account it was aimed at. The Onion has had some questionable pieces that weren't any better than what Babylon Bee had, and they were never touched. The moderation has to be consistent; I don't think a council is a bad idea, especially for bigger account bans. All that said, I hope Trump is never allowed back, but he probably will be. In any case, things have to be equally applied and that has not been the case to anyone paying attention. Even the doxing rules have basically been completely ignored if it were aimed at -some- people. Then, there are things like the Taliban, Russia, China, etc which have at times actively cheered on social media about the death of Americans or an American defeat... having active accounts but then you ban sitting members of the US government? (I think Trump deserved it, but there are others.) How does that make any sense at all?
  - pbreit 4y ago
    "I hope Trump is never allowed back," Why?
    - bitdestroyer 4y ago
      gestures broadly
    - sg47 4y ago
      - base698 4y ago
        If democracy got you Trump why would more democracy be the solution?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- moralestapia 4y ago
  It seems the "private company can do what they want" argument is becoming quite unpopular all of a sudden :^)
  - mikkergp 4y ago
    Is it? I haven't seen that yet, did someone put out a poll recently?
- merely-unlikely 4y ago
  > Ye’s account was restored by Twitter before the acquisition. They did not consult with or inform me. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586073042534297601 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586073042534297601
- bergenty 4y ago
  - mikkergp 4y ago
    This is vague, but you're hoping to end the political oppression of trans people? > restore sanity to science and biology based cultural agreement What does this mean, like scientific studies on how to get people to agree?
    - bergenty 4y ago
      Rather the opposite. Return to sanity with gender defined by biology and provide mental health treatment for trans.
      - Elinvynia 4y ago
- koonsolo 4y ago
  I'm mostly curious what will happen to this account: https://twitter.com/ElonJet https://twitter.com/ElonJet
- mlindner 4y ago
  Babylon Bee was never unbanned (because they were never banned in the first place, just suspended and continue to be suspended) and Ye was unbanned before Elon Musk ever took over.
  - judah 4y ago
    Babylon Bee's Seth Dillon put it[0] this way: > "The Babylon Bee was tossed in Twitter jail 7 months ago for a joke that referred to an adult male as a man. We could have restored our account at any time by deleting the tweet, but we refused. It was the right call. Never censor yourself, and never apologize for speaking truth." [0]: https://twitter.com/SethDillon/status/1585633678977544192?s=20&t=A2dKFigfjAzXc2QbtEgGMw https://twitter.com/SethDillon/status/1585633678977544192?s=...
    - mlindner 4y ago
      That's not the topic I'm talking about. I'm talking about the factual events of what occurred. The comment is neutral on whether it should have been suspended or not. The comment is just stating that Babylon Bee was never banned, the account still exists and it's status has not changed since that initial event and Elon Musk has had nothing to do with it.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- paganel 4y ago
  > The Babylon Bee What's wrong with unbanning a satirical account?
- wesapien 4y ago
  Isn't that how it works Pre-Elon, Twitter had protected classes and ideological profiling of enemies.
cwkoss 4y ago
He already tweeted something groveling to the importance of advertisers asking them to not leave yet.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- pushingice 4y ago
  His tweets about China show he knows how to grovel when money's at stake.
duxup 4y ago
>maybe eliminate the high profile banning but a person on the ground will have largely the same experience It's either going to be a double standard or not. I moderated a busy gaming site for years. Users have nothing to do but re-post what got someone else banned and then complain things aren't consistent. I would find the idea that a politician gets to say things, but I don't completely absurd.
- mikkergp 4y ago
  I mean, if you think that “everyone is happy with Elon’s content moderation strategies” was one of the possible outcomes, well then I disagree, I think Elon is going to take heat for content moderation across the political spectrum.
  - duxup 4y ago
    I was thinking of it just from a moderation perspective. Elon, who knows.
  - enumjorge 4y ago
    > I think Elon is going to take heat for content moderation across the political spectrum The difference now is that Elon went from being one of the loudest members of the peanut gallery to the guy running the show.
    - mochomocha 4y ago
      Yep. Much harder to be the one bearing the responsibility of the calls being made than being an armchair commentator complaining about the decisions. I don't anticipate that he'll be any more successful at this than other leadership teams of social media companies. There's no way of "winning" at this game: damned if you do, damned if you don't.
- eastbound 4y ago
  If you moderated the 18-25, huge respect, I’m just adding background info: it’s a huge piece of French culture among geeks, like the 4chan, except most of the interesting website exists within the lapse between posting and being censored. It’s everything-ist and very bad taste. The rest is uninteresting, if it stays on, then it means it doesn’t say anything of any relevance. Moderators are kept to believe they’re administering a gaming forum with occasional slip-ups, whereas “being 410ed” became a colloquial word among teens (410 means your post returns HTTP-410, i.e. it was deleted). It’s like Snapchat, nothing lives for eternity (18-25 stands for the age, it’s not a 13-52 ratio, that would be banned). The 18-25 is a piece of ephemeral art.
wwweston 4y ago
> Elon will probably run Twitter the way a "reasonable executive" would. Take your originally intended actions and obscure responsibility for them until risks of accountability are sufficiently mitigated?
- mikkergp 4y ago
  I mean maybe, I sort of literally just mean not drive his investment into the ground by opening the floodgates, that could take a lot of forms.
Krasnol 4y ago
Based upon his build up, this will be a fig leaf/scapegoat . I don't see anything in his behaviour which would justify your "optimistic" outlook. Sure it won't degenerate in one of those gutter platforms right away but I doubt he'll be able to maintain an acceptable level as long as he's directly involved. He just doesn't make the the impression of an adult person. imho this may end up being really good for the rest of the internet if it drives away interesting and important people to other platforms. > scapegoat
- mikkergp 4y ago
  This might be true, in which case maybe he brings jack nack or another executive in? I think jack expressed he wasn’t interested.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    Jack is launching his own new social media effort, and announced it publicly immediately after the Twitter deal closed.
- matwood 4y ago
  Musk had to borrow quite a bit of money to close the deal. Those looming debt payments will force real business decisions.
  - Krasnol 4y ago
    He lost money before on his childish outbursts. Why is this supposed to be different?
    - matwood 4y ago
      The scale. A million here and there for him is nothing, but billions is real money, even for him.
      - Krasnol 4y ago
Hamuko 4y ago
>Elon will probably run Twitter the way a "reasonable executive" would. Not just release the hounds. Is there a list of how many different institutions and investors have money in Twitter now? Because I remember Musk taking in a lot of money for this takeover. And those people probably had the smarts to give them an exit in case Musk decided to release the hounds.
TulliusCicero 4y ago
This is rather confusing to me. Earlier this year he seemed pretty set on the idea of allowing whatever's legal, making Twitter all about free speech. But now it'll just get some minor changes? If it's true, why the change of heart?
- tomcam 4y ago
  As your namesake understood intimately, we can’t know it’s in someone’s heart. And as a reasonable modern observer should understand, Elon makes frequent course adjustments. Not only don’t we know how it’s going to work out, my guess is he doesn’t know either at the moment.
- encryptluks2 4y ago
  He didn't Twitter profitability required partners that would demand more.
- sangnoir 4y ago
  His money is now on the line: He has sunk $44B and has to get it back somehow. It is no longer a cute thought experiment, but cold, harsh reality.
  - IanCal 4y ago
    You might be right, though I do wonder how much Elon and Zuckerberg look at risks and think "doesn't matter I'll still be insanely wealthy". He has to deal with actual issues if he's bought Twitter, I agree, but I don't know if the financial incentive is so key, even with borrowed money.
  - megablast 4y ago
    He did't sink 44b, more like 33b.
    - fknorangesite 4y ago
      Thanks for the correction; this changes everything.
LastTrain 4y ago
What hounds?
- mikkergp 4y ago
  https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Hell%20Hound#content https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Hell%20Hound#content
foobarian 4y ago
You're hired!
greenthrow 4y ago
You are taking him at his word when he has demonstrated time and time again that he should not be taken at his word.
- mikkergp 4y ago
  I think I'm taking him at his incentives. 44 billion is a lot of incentive.
  - greenthrow 4y ago
    Incentive only to get his money out. Not to follow through on his promises.
- the_doctah 4y ago
  "I'm going to buy Twitter" - Elon Musk
  - WolfCop 4y ago
    He tried to back out and only followed through after being sued.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
josh_carterPDX 4y ago
"Keep the advertisers happy, but try to reduce the reliance on advertisers." I actually think the opposite is going to happen. He's already said he wants Twitter to be the most prolific site for advertisers saying that he thinks advertising can "delight, entertain, and inform you." If he introduces a subscription model TikTok will pull ahead and take over the entire social media space.
- mikkergp 4y ago
  Yeah, I'll be curious to see, now this is not first hand, but I was referencing this pitch deck to investors which seems like the most honest version of Elon? Since it's directly connected to the money, but who knows. https://www.pymnts.com/news/investment-tracker/2022/musks-pitch-to-twitter-investors-quintuple-revenue-cut-reliance-on-ads-grow-payments/ https://www.pymnts.com/news/investment-tracker/2022/musks-pi...
- mikeryan 4y ago
  From advertisers perspective TikTok has already won in the social media space. It’s going to take another year or so for advertisers and TikTok to figure it all out but from talking to the guys who do focus on brands social media spends they can’t get on TikTok fast enough.
  - dathinab 4y ago
    Through from what I have heard TikToks handling of ad money (how it goes to the creator) is bad and their handling of copyright is even worse. On the other hand YouTube shorts can already technically do most things TikTok can, and handles copyright okay (from the pov of the big copyright holders) and has licenses for a lot of music and stuff and created an ad model making it much more interesting for people to create shorts then TikToks and allows using shorts as a way to get someone hooked for longer videos. And there are GeoPolitical reasons why regulators might want to push YouTube over TikTok e.g. by how they create regulations. So there is a realistic chance that in the next 1 or two years YouTube Shorts will eat up TikTok due to better quality Shorts for the user and better monetization/money making chances for the creators.
throw101010 4y ago
> Elon will probably run Twitter the way a "reasonable executive" would. Not just release the hounds. Isn't this his duty to shareholders as long as Twitter is (still) a publicly traded company?
- CDRdude 4y ago
  Twitter is no longer a publicly traded company. Elon Musk owns it now.
  - mikkergp 4y ago
    He still has a fiduciary duty since he's not the sole shareholder though.
    - bmitc 4y ago
      Who are the other shareholders? I thought the entire point of the purchase is that he bought out all the shareholders.
      - mikkergp 4y ago
        Maybe shareholders was the wrong term, doesn’t he have a duty to like the banks and Saudis and other investors
        bmitc 4y ago
        Oh, I see. I have no idea. My intuition is that it's like a standard loan, as in he can do whatever he wants but if he doesn't pay it back then they'll come after his other assets he supposedly put up as collateral. That's just me guessing. I have no idea how that works at that scale of financing.
        jedberg 4y ago
        When you owe the bank 1 million dollars, you have a problem. When you owe the bank 1 billion dollars, the bank has a problem.
shadowgovt 4y ago
I don't see anything in Elon Musk's past operation of businesses as CEO that suggests to me he's going to have a better sense of how to run a social network than the previous operators. I predict the best case scenario is that he does no worse.
- Retric 4y ago
  The most likely result seems to be he sells it within 5 years after making zero meaningful changes and taking a massive loss. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad result.
  - dvt 4y ago
    I don't think he'd sell. At this point, I think it's more of a "crown jewel" for him—like the tech nerd equivalent of owning a baseball or a basketball team.
    - im_down_w_otp 4y ago
      I guess so, maybe? Though I can barely think of a less interesting tech-y thing to own than something like Twitter when you already own SpaceX and Tesla. In terms of Tech-y-ness, Twitter is a spectacular downgrade.
      - jrumbut 4y ago
        Space and car companies are highly dependent on the government, so maybe less a tech jewel than a political one.
      - pydry 4y ago
        Twitter is to Musk what the Washington Post was to Bezos.
    - fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
      Twitter will owe > 1B/year in interest. If it doesn’t start making money, it either goes bankrupt or Elon bails it out.
cloutchaser 4y ago
So, create a court system basically that decides on free speech issues. Got it. Likely will arrive at the same conclusion as the legal system that’s been operating for over 200 years. There’s a reason the legal system said free speech is out to the point of direct imminent harm. It was the arrogance of 20 year old programmers in silicon valley who thought they could create a better legal system.
- mikkergp 4y ago
  The legal system largely doesn't have to worry about advertisers and users fleeing the country.
- llanowarelves 4y ago
  That's one big problem with these (US based) companies. They don't apply the spirit of the laws in their own home country that allowed/allows them to exist. Zuckerberg has even claimed that fb is a "digital town square". They don't mind enforcing speech laws of other countries, lowest common denominator. No tears would be shed if they were broken up, nationalized, etc.
jmyeet 4y ago
So I believe your comment to be in good faith but it's overly optimistic. First, whenever it comes to "free speech" 99% of the time people make that argument they're not arguging for "all speech". They're talking about "my speech". And most of that time they really just want to utter hate speech. Second, the idea of what's normal or acceptable is built on deeply ingrained beliefs that typically aren't rational. You see this whenever Elon talks about the "far left". This is such a laughable concept. The "far left" in American politics quite often simply means "we should let trans people exist" (eg [1]). Even suggesting things like everyone deserves access to healthcare is viewed as an extreme left position in the US. So when Elon argues he's a centrist, the calibration is off because your choices in mainstream American politics are mostly between extreme right (often called the "alt right") being the party of Trump and the center right in the form of the Democratic Party (eg [2]). There is no "left" in American politics. The takeover of neoliberalism in the US is near-total. As for Elon's plans for Twitter, he's put a lot of money on the line and the letter to advertisers I think gives a good signal of where this is going. I predict Elon will simply cut costs, unban a few conservatives as a token gesture and wait a couple of years to take the company public again and get out. He may as well start making a "Mission Accomplished" banner now and book the aircraft carrier. This is basically the private equity playbook. [1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/17/elon-musk-should-apologize-for-mocking-gender-pronouns-says-hrc.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/17/elon-musk-should-apologize-f... [2]: https://twitter.com/cnbc/status/1471615893411090433?lang=en https://twitter.com/cnbc/status/1471615893411090433?lang=en
- fleddr 4y ago
  I would agree that the (economic) policy of the democrats is center-right, but culturally the party definitely has a far-left voice. Radical feminism, postmodernism, anti-racism Mao struggles, gender puzzles. And to use the overused term "wokism". Wokism is culturally dominant, but widely rejected all the way from center-left to anything to the right of that. Republicans are economically right (so not extreme right), yet have a far-right outing, as you say.
  - Conscat 4y ago
    Gender puzzles??? If you find it puzzling, maybe you're just dumber than me?
hidudeurcool 4y ago
illuminati1911 4y ago
”(probably less action on more contentious issues, but you still can't use racial epithets and call for violence)” This hasn’t been the case until now. Just as an example lot of radical leftists, BLM activists etc. have openly called for extermination of white people and contantly used racist rhetoric without any consequences. Meanwhile a lot of convervatives, libertarians etc. have been banned/suspended from Twitter due to false ”hatespeech” reporting. No one has ever asked for ”hounds to be released”. No one sane wants Twitter to become another 8chan. What people want is the one-sided 1984 experiment to end.
UncleMeat 4y ago
Unless this is also bluster.
fatneckbeardz 4y ago
insanitybit 4y ago
> This sort of justifies the viewpoint that despite all his bluster, Elon will probably run Twitter the way a "reasonable executive" would. Not just release the hounds. He literally just had every engineer print out the last 3 months of code lol
- bagels 4y ago
  Actual literally?
  - zhte415 4y ago
    Literally. The engineers pushed and pressed the code until it oozed out of the base, java flowing across the room.
- 3np 4y ago
  Source?
  - insanitybit 4y ago
    https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1586127052767318016 https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1586127052767318016 https://twitter.com/leahculver/status/1586145696163373056 https://twitter.com/leahculver/status/1586145696163373056
- none_to_remain 4y ago
  I understand he also laid off the entire data engineering team, that news being sourced from Messrs. Ligma & Johnson, two prankster nerds who went to the vicinity of Twitter HQ and walked around carrying cardboard boxes. Definitely a story to be careful on
  - insanitybit 4y ago
    Yes, I saw that. The reporter behind this story says he has 4 sources and screenshots. I can't say it's 100% true but it seems much more likely than the Ligma/Johnson bit.
TheBigSalad 4y ago
What is this Elon's account?
- mikkergp 4y ago
  Because he’s usually self deprecating? I didn’t think this was a particularly kind analysis, my assessment was basically he’ll do whatever makes him the most money (or loses him the least)
sam0x17 4y ago
Don't forget he's super anti-remote-work which is going to scare a way a good 30% of the employees anyway
- harshtruths 4y ago
  People hate to hear it on HN but you really don't need 10000+ employees to run a glorified forum site and Musk is going to prove it once again.
  - mikkergp 4y ago
    > Musk is going to prove it once again. You make it sound like this has been proven many times, examples?
- scaramanga 4y ago
  sure, between that and the quid-pro-quo sexual harassment...

jszymborski 4y ago

A bunch of accounts like The Babylon Bee and Ye have been unbanned w/o input from any such committee of diverse viewpoints. I don't have much faith that Musk will not act unilaterally in service of his friends and allies.

mikkergp 4y ago
Were they? I know I can see their pages, but I don't see any new content from them. realdonaldtrump is still suspended, I imagine we'll just have to wait to see what happens.
- MBCook 4y ago
  Many of the “unbanned” accounts weren’t banned before and that didn’t change. They were in Twitter jail (or whatever the term is). The account is there but they couldn’t publish new tweets. That’s the change to watch for. He could unban Trump, say he kept his promise, but keep the account locked so that Trump couldn’t actually tweet. As a hypothetical example.
  - topynate 4y ago
    It's called a temporary suspension. Twitter asks you to acknowledge your tweet was bad by deleting it yourself. If you do, you get a time-out in the naughty corner for 12 hours, or a week, or whatever, and then you can tweet again. If you don't, you stay in the naughty corner. Whoever designed this process could stand to learn how to treat people like adults, in my opinion.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - PM_me_your_math 4y ago
      She has already been fired so the lesson is moot.
    - yamtaddle 4y ago
      > Whoever designed this process could stand to learn how to treat people like adults, in my opinion. So, simply shadow ban them, then?
      - topynate 4y ago
        If you're referring to HN policy then for an established account it's not really shadowbanning, because dang will tell you that you're banned and why. Being treated as a useless noob until proven otherwise is being treated as an adult. Twitter is different (although perhaps more different than it needs to be). Seeing as you ask, here is how to handle content deletion on Twitter without infantilizing users. Don't ask a user to "delete" a tweet – something which has no effect on that tweet's visibility anyway. Just hide it and tell him why. If the user chooses to appeal, that appeal can go forward without restricting the use of the account. Give time-outs sparingly. They should be more of a final warning than a routine measure. If it's necessary to give a time-out, start the clock immediately, not when the user takes some action.
  - ghostpepper 4y ago
    Why is banned vs Twitter jail (or whatever the term is) a meaningful distinction?
trophycase 4y ago
According to sources he was unbanned before Musk got there
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  What sources?
  - jonas21 4y ago
    Source: Elon Musk https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586073042534297601 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586073042534297601
    - vkou 4y ago
      He's been dishonest (in both small, and large things) with such frequency, that we're going to need independent verification before anything he says can be believed.
    - denton-scratch 4y ago
      Perhaps someone has independent corroboration?
dereg 4y ago
He was unbanned prior to musk’s arrival, according to musk.
- FireBeyond 4y ago
  "Funding secured."
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
There have to be grades between banning and free for all.
- dane-pgp 4y ago
  If we're dreaming big here, how about a slider that users can adjust for how much free speech they want to be exposed to? Or perhaps separate toggles for if they want to opt-in to seeing election misinformation, antivax conspiracies, bigotry against various groups, etc.
fasthands9 4y ago
I think one reasonable policy could be "form a council of diverse viewpoints and only ban someone if they all (or mostly all) agree the person should be kicked off" and another reasonable policy could be "form a council fo diverse viewpoints and ban someone if one (or a couple) think the person should be kicked off. I think its fair to say the committee will end up being a scapegoat - but to be charitable to the idea in general its pretty clear that not 100% or even 75% of the population thinks that Babylon Bee should be banned. If you have a system where one voice on the committee can ban someone then most liberal comedians would be banned for played up reasons, too.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  Your first policy is reasonable, but your second is definitely not.
  - fasthands9 4y ago
    Sure. But ultimately there is some level of arbitrary lines where you have a trade-off of overbanning or underbanning. Say you have a committee of 9 people? What's your cut-off? There isn't a clear answer - especially as norms change a bit and the committee members change.
    - mbreese 4y ago
      I honestly don’t think it matters. The committee will answer to one person who can arbitrarily overrule the committee, whether formally or not. It’s his company and he can do what he wants with it. Any rules can be changed at any time without recourse. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. Well, it might be bad for Twitter the service, but as far as legal governance, it’s the way it works. The only limit will really be what advertisers will support. It is a business after all. But any type of council should be considered advisory at best.
  - orblivion 4y ago
    You could use the second standard to flag a user as "spicy" and hide them for users who prefer to be exposed to more "normal" opinions.
concinds 4y ago
Let's avoid disinfo. Neither account was banned to begin with. Both accounts were restricted, which could be lifted after the user deletes the offending tweet. It's overwhelmingly likely Musk had nothing to do with either case (and he said so himself). https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/28/technology/kanye-ye-twitter-ban.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/28/technology/kanye-ye-twitt...
- mwint 4y ago
  Oh come on, that’s like saying someone isn’t being tortured, just temporarily having their pleasure removed until they confess.
  - klyrs 4y ago
    Is it actually anything like torture, though?
    - GaylordTuring 4y ago
      That's often not the point of analogies like this. So for the analog to be valid, the seriousness of the situation described doesn't have to be on similar levels. If you look up the definition of "analogy" on merriam-webster.com it says: "resemblance in some [my emphasis] particulars between things otherwise unlike"
      - klyrs 4y ago
        Yeah, I know what an analogy is. It's a bloody stupid analogy because it's making a mountain out of a mole hill, when we all know that moles dig tunnels.
  - encryptluks2 4y ago
    No, that is like saying someone should remove some obscene clothing before entering a private establishment and here you are comparing it to be tortured.
AustinDev 4y ago
Unsuspended and Kanye's happened before he got there precisely for this framing if I had to guess. Likely a malicious employee.
- sangnoir 4y ago
  > Likely a malicious employee. ...or an employee who felt unshackled from the previous management and knew they would have air-support by the time anyone else realized what had happened.
  - AustinDev 4y ago
    Also possible!
bogota 4y ago
That happened before elon officially took over. He replied to a question about it on Twitter and i really don’t see him lying about it. Im not a elon fan. At all. but the knee jerk reaction he gets at this point is kind of deserved… however you’re better off not falling into that trap.
- FireBeyond 4y ago
  - bogota 4y ago
    Just my opinion. But why would you lie about what will become a fairly big piece of news right before you are about to go through and be cutting a bunch of jobs. It would be almost certain to leak.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
LastTrain 4y ago
I would imagine the committee is not bound by past decisions, so it would follow that we'd see accounts getting unbanned at first.
verisimi 4y ago
Whereas the previous crew were magnanimous?
partiallypro 4y ago
Babylon Bee being suspended was one of the dumber things the previous Twitter rules had done. It's a satire site, it's right leaning, nothing in the piece they said was hateful or even an unpopular view. Kanye's ban, he's just a mentally ill person. I don't think he meant "death con" he just didn't know that it's actually "def con." His remarks are still reprehensible. Twitter's whole moderation problem has been it is very, very inconsistent. I've seen accounts from certain political persuasions be banned or suspended, but then I have seen someone openly tell someone to kill themselves (or that they deserve to be killed or beaten) and the tweet was never removed, and the person was never suspended/banned because of the account it was aimed at. The Onion has had some questionable pieces that weren't any better than what Babylon Bee had, and they were never touched. The moderation has to be consistent; I don't think a council is a bad idea, especially for bigger account bans. All that said, I hope Trump is never allowed back, but he probably will be. In any case, things have to be equally applied and that has not been the case to anyone paying attention. Even the doxing rules have basically been completely ignored if it were aimed at -some- people. Then, there are things like the Taliban, Russia, China, etc which have at times actively cheered on social media about the death of Americans or an American defeat... having active accounts but then you ban sitting members of the US government? (I think Trump deserved it, but there are others.) How does that make any sense at all?
- pbreit 4y ago
  "I hope Trump is never allowed back," Why?
  - bitdestroyer 4y ago
    gestures broadly
  - sg47 4y ago
    - base698 4y ago
      If democracy got you Trump why would more democracy be the solution?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
moralestapia 4y ago
It seems the "private company can do what they want" argument is becoming quite unpopular all of a sudden :^)
- mikkergp 4y ago
  Is it? I haven't seen that yet, did someone put out a poll recently?
merely-unlikely 4y ago
> Ye’s account was restored by Twitter before the acquisition. They did not consult with or inform me. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586073042534297601 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586073042534297601
bergenty 4y ago
- mikkergp 4y ago
  This is vague, but you're hoping to end the political oppression of trans people? > restore sanity to science and biology based cultural agreement What does this mean, like scientific studies on how to get people to agree?
  - bergenty 4y ago
    Rather the opposite. Return to sanity with gender defined by biology and provide mental health treatment for trans.
    - Elinvynia 4y ago
koonsolo 4y ago
I'm mostly curious what will happen to this account: https://twitter.com/ElonJet https://twitter.com/ElonJet
mlindner 4y ago
Babylon Bee was never unbanned (because they were never banned in the first place, just suspended and continue to be suspended) and Ye was unbanned before Elon Musk ever took over.
- judah 4y ago
  Babylon Bee's Seth Dillon put it[0] this way: > "The Babylon Bee was tossed in Twitter jail 7 months ago for a joke that referred to an adult male as a man. We could have restored our account at any time by deleting the tweet, but we refused. It was the right call. Never censor yourself, and never apologize for speaking truth." [0]: https://twitter.com/SethDillon/status/1585633678977544192?s=20&t=A2dKFigfjAzXc2QbtEgGMw https://twitter.com/SethDillon/status/1585633678977544192?s=...
  - mlindner 4y ago
    That's not the topic I'm talking about. I'm talking about the factual events of what occurred. The comment is neutral on whether it should have been suspended or not. The comment is just stating that Babylon Bee was never banned, the account still exists and it's status has not changed since that initial event and Elon Musk has had nothing to do with it.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
paganel 4y ago
> The Babylon Bee What's wrong with unbanning a satirical account?
wesapien 4y ago
Isn't that how it works Pre-Elon, Twitter had protected classes and ideological profiling of enemies.

cwkoss 4y ago

He already tweeted something groveling to the importance of advertisers asking them to not leave yet.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pushingice 4y ago
His tweets about China show he knows how to grovel when money's at stake.

duxup 4y ago

>maybe eliminate the high profile banning but a person on the ground will have largely the same experience It's either going to be a double standard or not. I moderated a busy gaming site for years. Users have nothing to do but re-post what got someone else banned and then complain things aren't consistent. I would find the idea that a politician gets to say things, but I don't completely absurd.

mikkergp 4y ago
I mean, if you think that “everyone is happy with Elon’s content moderation strategies” was one of the possible outcomes, well then I disagree, I think Elon is going to take heat for content moderation across the political spectrum.
- duxup 4y ago
  I was thinking of it just from a moderation perspective. Elon, who knows.
- enumjorge 4y ago
  > I think Elon is going to take heat for content moderation across the political spectrum The difference now is that Elon went from being one of the loudest members of the peanut gallery to the guy running the show.
  - mochomocha 4y ago
    Yep. Much harder to be the one bearing the responsibility of the calls being made than being an armchair commentator complaining about the decisions. I don't anticipate that he'll be any more successful at this than other leadership teams of social media companies. There's no way of "winning" at this game: damned if you do, damned if you don't.
eastbound 4y ago
If you moderated the 18-25, huge respect, I’m just adding background info: it’s a huge piece of French culture among geeks, like the 4chan, except most of the interesting website exists within the lapse between posting and being censored. It’s everything-ist and very bad taste. The rest is uninteresting, if it stays on, then it means it doesn’t say anything of any relevance. Moderators are kept to believe they’re administering a gaming forum with occasional slip-ups, whereas “being 410ed” became a colloquial word among teens (410 means your post returns HTTP-410, i.e. it was deleted). It’s like Snapchat, nothing lives for eternity (18-25 stands for the age, it’s not a 13-52 ratio, that would be banned). The 18-25 is a piece of ephemeral art.

wwweston 4y ago

> Elon will probably run Twitter the way a "reasonable executive" would. Take your originally intended actions and obscure responsibility for them until risks of accountability are sufficiently mitigated?

mikkergp 4y ago
I mean maybe, I sort of literally just mean not drive his investment into the ground by opening the floodgates, that could take a lot of forms.

Krasnol 4y ago

Based upon his build up, this will be a fig leaf/scapegoat . I don't see anything in his behaviour which would justify your "optimistic" outlook. Sure it won't degenerate in one of those gutter platforms right away but I doubt he'll be able to maintain an acceptable level as long as he's directly involved. He just doesn't make the the impression of an adult person. imho this may end up being really good for the rest of the internet if it drives away interesting and important people to other platforms. > scapegoat

mikkergp 4y ago
This might be true, in which case maybe he brings jack nack or another executive in? I think jack expressed he wasn’t interested.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  Jack is launching his own new social media effort, and announced it publicly immediately after the Twitter deal closed.
matwood 4y ago
Musk had to borrow quite a bit of money to close the deal. Those looming debt payments will force real business decisions.
- Krasnol 4y ago
  He lost money before on his childish outbursts. Why is this supposed to be different?
  - matwood 4y ago
    The scale. A million here and there for him is nothing, but billions is real money, even for him.
    - Krasnol 4y ago

Hamuko 4y ago

>Elon will probably run Twitter the way a "reasonable executive" would. Not just release the hounds. Is there a list of how many different institutions and investors have money in Twitter now? Because I remember Musk taking in a lot of money for this takeover. And those people probably had the smarts to give them an exit in case Musk decided to release the hounds.

TulliusCicero 4y ago

This is rather confusing to me. Earlier this year he seemed pretty set on the idea of allowing whatever's legal, making Twitter all about free speech. But now it'll just get some minor changes? If it's true, why the change of heart?

tomcam 4y ago
As your namesake understood intimately, we can’t know it’s in someone’s heart. And as a reasonable modern observer should understand, Elon makes frequent course adjustments. Not only don’t we know how it’s going to work out, my guess is he doesn’t know either at the moment.
encryptluks2 4y ago
He didn't Twitter profitability required partners that would demand more.
sangnoir 4y ago
His money is now on the line: He has sunk $44B and has to get it back somehow. It is no longer a cute thought experiment, but cold, harsh reality.
- IanCal 4y ago
  You might be right, though I do wonder how much Elon and Zuckerberg look at risks and think "doesn't matter I'll still be insanely wealthy". He has to deal with actual issues if he's bought Twitter, I agree, but I don't know if the financial incentive is so key, even with borrowed money.
- megablast 4y ago
  He did't sink 44b, more like 33b.
  - fknorangesite 4y ago
    Thanks for the correction; this changes everything.

LastTrain 4y ago

What hounds?

mikkergp 4y ago
https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Hell%20Hound#content https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Hell%20Hound#content

foobarian 4y ago

You're hired!

greenthrow 4y ago

You are taking him at his word when he has demonstrated time and time again that he should not be taken at his word.

mikkergp 4y ago
I think I'm taking him at his incentives. 44 billion is a lot of incentive.
- greenthrow 4y ago
  Incentive only to get his money out. Not to follow through on his promises.
the_doctah 4y ago
"I'm going to buy Twitter" - Elon Musk
- WolfCop 4y ago
  He tried to back out and only followed through after being sued.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

josh_carterPDX 4y ago

"Keep the advertisers happy, but try to reduce the reliance on advertisers." I actually think the opposite is going to happen. He's already said he wants Twitter to be the most prolific site for advertisers saying that he thinks advertising can "delight, entertain, and inform you." If he introduces a subscription model TikTok will pull ahead and take over the entire social media space.

mikkergp 4y ago
Yeah, I'll be curious to see, now this is not first hand, but I was referencing this pitch deck to investors which seems like the most honest version of Elon? Since it's directly connected to the money, but who knows. https://www.pymnts.com/news/investment-tracker/2022/musks-pitch-to-twitter-investors-quintuple-revenue-cut-reliance-on-ads-grow-payments/ https://www.pymnts.com/news/investment-tracker/2022/musks-pi...
mikeryan 4y ago
From advertisers perspective TikTok has already won in the social media space. It’s going to take another year or so for advertisers and TikTok to figure it all out but from talking to the guys who do focus on brands social media spends they can’t get on TikTok fast enough.
- dathinab 4y ago
  Through from what I have heard TikToks handling of ad money (how it goes to the creator) is bad and their handling of copyright is even worse. On the other hand YouTube shorts can already technically do most things TikTok can, and handles copyright okay (from the pov of the big copyright holders) and has licenses for a lot of music and stuff and created an ad model making it much more interesting for people to create shorts then TikToks and allows using shorts as a way to get someone hooked for longer videos. And there are GeoPolitical reasons why regulators might want to push YouTube over TikTok e.g. by how they create regulations. So there is a realistic chance that in the next 1 or two years YouTube Shorts will eat up TikTok due to better quality Shorts for the user and better monetization/money making chances for the creators.

throw101010 4y ago

> Elon will probably run Twitter the way a "reasonable executive" would. Not just release the hounds. Isn't this his duty to shareholders as long as Twitter is (still) a publicly traded company?

CDRdude 4y ago
Twitter is no longer a publicly traded company. Elon Musk owns it now.
- mikkergp 4y ago
  He still has a fiduciary duty since he's not the sole shareholder though.
  - bmitc 4y ago
    Who are the other shareholders? I thought the entire point of the purchase is that he bought out all the shareholders.
    - mikkergp 4y ago
      Maybe shareholders was the wrong term, doesn’t he have a duty to like the banks and Saudis and other investors
      - bmitc 4y ago
        Oh, I see. I have no idea. My intuition is that it's like a standard loan, as in he can do whatever he wants but if he doesn't pay it back then they'll come after his other assets he supposedly put up as collateral. That's just me guessing. I have no idea how that works at that scale of financing.
        jedberg 4y ago
        When you owe the bank 1 million dollars, you have a problem. When you owe the bank 1 billion dollars, the bank has a problem.

shadowgovt 4y ago

I don't see anything in Elon Musk's past operation of businesses as CEO that suggests to me he's going to have a better sense of how to run a social network than the previous operators. I predict the best case scenario is that he does no worse.

Retric 4y ago
The most likely result seems to be he sells it within 5 years after making zero meaningful changes and taking a massive loss. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad result.
- dvt 4y ago
  I don't think he'd sell. At this point, I think it's more of a "crown jewel" for him—like the tech nerd equivalent of owning a baseball or a basketball team.
  - im_down_w_otp 4y ago
    I guess so, maybe? Though I can barely think of a less interesting tech-y thing to own than something like Twitter when you already own SpaceX and Tesla. In terms of Tech-y-ness, Twitter is a spectacular downgrade.
    - jrumbut 4y ago
      Space and car companies are highly dependent on the government, so maybe less a tech jewel than a political one.
    - pydry 4y ago
      Twitter is to Musk what the Washington Post was to Bezos.
  - fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
    Twitter will owe > 1B/year in interest. If it doesn’t start making money, it either goes bankrupt or Elon bails it out.

cloutchaser 4y ago

So, create a court system basically that decides on free speech issues. Got it. Likely will arrive at the same conclusion as the legal system that’s been operating for over 200 years. There’s a reason the legal system said free speech is out to the point of direct imminent harm. It was the arrogance of 20 year old programmers in silicon valley who thought they could create a better legal system.

mikkergp 4y ago
The legal system largely doesn't have to worry about advertisers and users fleeing the country.
llanowarelves 4y ago
That's one big problem with these (US based) companies. They don't apply the spirit of the laws in their own home country that allowed/allows them to exist. Zuckerberg has even claimed that fb is a "digital town square". They don't mind enforcing speech laws of other countries, lowest common denominator. No tears would be shed if they were broken up, nationalized, etc.

jmyeet 4y ago

So I believe your comment to be in good faith but it's overly optimistic. First, whenever it comes to "free speech" 99% of the time people make that argument they're not arguging for "all speech". They're talking about "my speech". And most of that time they really just want to utter hate speech. Second, the idea of what's normal or acceptable is built on deeply ingrained beliefs that typically aren't rational. You see this whenever Elon talks about the "far left". This is such a laughable concept. The "far left" in American politics quite often simply means "we should let trans people exist" (eg [1]). Even suggesting things like everyone deserves access to healthcare is viewed as an extreme left position in the US. So when Elon argues he's a centrist, the calibration is off because your choices in mainstream American politics are mostly between extreme right (often called the "alt right") being the party of Trump and the center right in the form of the Democratic Party (eg [2]). There is no "left" in American politics. The takeover of neoliberalism in the US is near-total. As for Elon's plans for Twitter, he's put a lot of money on the line and the letter to advertisers I think gives a good signal of where this is going. I predict Elon will simply cut costs, unban a few conservatives as a token gesture and wait a couple of years to take the company public again and get out. He may as well start making a "Mission Accomplished" banner now and book the aircraft carrier. This is basically the private equity playbook. [1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/17/elon-musk-should-apologize-for-mocking-gender-pronouns-says-hrc.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/17/elon-musk-should-apologize-f... [2]: https://twitter.com/cnbc/status/1471615893411090433?lang=en https://twitter.com/cnbc/status/1471615893411090433?lang=en

fleddr 4y ago
I would agree that the (economic) policy of the democrats is center-right, but culturally the party definitely has a far-left voice. Radical feminism, postmodernism, anti-racism Mao struggles, gender puzzles. And to use the overused term "wokism". Wokism is culturally dominant, but widely rejected all the way from center-left to anything to the right of that. Republicans are economically right (so not extreme right), yet have a far-right outing, as you say.
- Conscat 4y ago
  Gender puzzles??? If you find it puzzling, maybe you're just dumber than me?

hidudeurcool 4y ago

illuminati1911 4y ago

”(probably less action on more contentious issues, but you still can't use racial epithets and call for violence)” This hasn’t been the case until now. Just as an example lot of radical leftists, BLM activists etc. have openly called for extermination of white people and contantly used racist rhetoric without any consequences. Meanwhile a lot of convervatives, libertarians etc. have been banned/suspended from Twitter due to false ”hatespeech” reporting. No one has ever asked for ”hounds to be released”. No one sane wants Twitter to become another 8chan. What people want is the one-sided 1984 experiment to end.

UncleMeat 4y ago

Unless this is also bluster.

fatneckbeardz 4y ago

insanitybit 4y ago

> This sort of justifies the viewpoint that despite all his bluster, Elon will probably run Twitter the way a "reasonable executive" would. Not just release the hounds. He literally just had every engineer print out the last 3 months of code lol

bagels 4y ago
Actual literally?
- zhte415 4y ago
  Literally. The engineers pushed and pressed the code until it oozed out of the base, java flowing across the room.
3np 4y ago
Source?
- insanitybit 4y ago
  https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1586127052767318016 https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1586127052767318016 https://twitter.com/leahculver/status/1586145696163373056 https://twitter.com/leahculver/status/1586145696163373056
none_to_remain 4y ago
I understand he also laid off the entire data engineering team, that news being sourced from Messrs. Ligma & Johnson, two prankster nerds who went to the vicinity of Twitter HQ and walked around carrying cardboard boxes. Definitely a story to be careful on
- insanitybit 4y ago
  Yes, I saw that. The reporter behind this story says he has 4 sources and screenshots. I can't say it's 100% true but it seems much more likely than the Ligma/Johnson bit.

TheBigSalad 4y ago

What is this Elon's account?

mikkergp 4y ago
Because he’s usually self deprecating? I didn’t think this was a particularly kind analysis, my assessment was basically he’ll do whatever makes him the most money (or loses him the least)

sam0x17 4y ago

Don't forget he's super anti-remote-work which is going to scare a way a good 30% of the employees anyway

harshtruths 4y ago
People hate to hear it on HN but you really don't need 10000+ employees to run a glorified forum site and Musk is going to prove it once again.
- mikkergp 4y ago
  > Musk is going to prove it once again. You make it sound like this has been proven many times, examples?
scaramanga 4y ago
sure, between that and the quid-pro-quo sexual harassment...